Protracted writing

lit-lorn-strait

Dear Geist,
I am a grade nine, philosophizing logophile trapped in a frustrating predicament. My problem is that I take too much time writing my English assignments. While my peers take two ninety-minute English classes to finish their essays, I would take that plus a few half-hour lunches and about three hours at home to complete the assignment. Very recently, my English final exam, which included an essay, exhorted me to reach out to you as it superlatively encapsulated my seemingly labyrinthine mare’s nest. The time limit on the five-paragraph essay was two hours, and literally everyone, except me, finished on time. And if it helps, the essay question was something very close to, if not exactly, “To what extent are our personal identities affected by outside sources?” At the two-hour mark, when I was supposed to finish, I was finishing my second paragraph still. While my friends gawked at me outside the windows of the gymnasium as if I were a desolate reptile imprisoned in a zoo, my English teacher discontentedly took me to a classroom to finish my essay. After an hour and ten minutes of guilt and perturbation, I had to write my math exam and had to hand in my essay despite having finished only three and a half paragraphs out of five. The essay was marked 86%. My teacher mentioned that what I had written was so excellent that I got an A, but because it was incomplete it was a low A. Both my teacher and I believe that I am a perfectionist in English. Not to rodomontade, but most if not all the assignments that I can work on at home for hours and hours, despite a schedule laden with extracurricular activities, earn high A’s. My English class average is 100%, and almost all my assignments this term (poems, essays, reports, comprehension, etc.) have been done in ludicrously protracted working durations. Please help me, because I know if I don't fix this, it could be detrimental to my dreams. As an aficionado of the omnitemporal art of literature, who aspires to reach great heights in this area via investigative journalism, criminal investigation, psychology, book-writing, etc. (all professions that will obviously have stringent time frames and require academic adeptness), I resolved to reach out to you for advice. (P.S. This email took me two hours to write!)
—Ravdeep Arora, Chilliwack BC
Dear Ravdeep,
It is a pleasure to hear from a young person who cares so much about the power of language that he will write and rewrite for hours, give up sleep, sacrifice marks and endure unwanted attention from fellow students. As you have discovered, though, this method isn’t always practical. If you want to go on to post-secondary academic or journalism pursuits, you’ll need to streamline your process to complete tasks in harmony with the work environment.
Either way, part of writing (and any satisfying work) is struggling with daunting obstacles and overcoming them, but this aspect is enjoyable only if it doesn’t take over. Also, it is important to take pleasure and pride in your work as its own reward, not just for the praise and high marks that it may bring.
Our concrete suggestion for you is to try writing in a simpler, more straightforward style. Lean, economical writing is always in fashion and always well received by readers. Like all writing, it’s harder than it looks, but a session with a more streamlined style will give you new insights into your process. A good exercise is to write a short piece about something you did or saw (start with 100 words), and write it using the words and sentences you would use in saying it out loud to a friend over lunch.
We also encourage you to read everything you can about what makes strong, effective writing, and to talk with other writers or readers about it. Here are a few readings to get you going. (Some refer to fiction writing, but the principles apply to non-fiction too.)
A compilation of advice to writers, published in the Guardian in 2010, Part 1 and Part 2.
A Geist Writer’s Toolbox post, Narrative: Six principles and some examples.
Simple & Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers, a book by Jacques Barzun. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but very good on the elegance of clean, simple, lucid writing.
Good luck!
—The Editors